Douglas Haynes was born 1936 in Regina, Saskatchewan. In 1958 he graduated from the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art, now called the Alberta College of Art.. He studied at the Royal College of Art, Holland in 1960-61. He joined the teaching staff at the University of Alberta, Edmonton in 1970.
Douglas Haynes is considered one of the most important contemporary abstract artists in Canada. His work has been described as post-painterly abstraction. “ Haynes work is a hybrid of non-objective painting and the kind of painting that makes use of subject matter. Shapes flutter and dance as if they are putti or angels or ascending and floating figures in a shallow, dished-in space within a stage set or niche in the wall. There is a richness and intensity of colour, and a deeper more sonorous surface.”

Douglas Haynes passed away on February 10, 2016. He will be greatly missed by his friends and colleagues in the Canadian art community and every one else that had the privilege of knowing him. Douglas Haynes will be remembered as a trailblazer of contemporary art in Canada, pushing the boundaries of post-modern abstraction.